Video Review: The Metal Shakespeare Company - To Bleed or Not to Bleed

I love power metal in a completely straightforward and non-ironic fashion. I enjoy Shakespeare a great deal. I think the marriage of the two - as personified by The Metal Shakespeare Company, seen performing in the video above - is absolutely brilliant in its simple logic: power metal is full of guys running around in tights singing about warriors. Shakespeare is full of guys in tights acting as warriors. Convergence is almost primal in its necessity. In the case of The Metal Shakespeare Company, it doesn't hurt that their showcase song isn't half bad.

However, as is appropriate - theater being a performing art, after all - it's the video that really puts this band over the top. The mingling of tights and tennis shoes, the tongue-in-cheek posturing and goofy antics, the formal garden filming location; all might seem amateurish in the wrong hands, but The Metal Shakespeare Company has the stage presence necessary to make the video look fun instead of stupid. I'd love to see them replicate the act on a live stage.